India Under British Rule from the Foundation of the East India Company

by James Talboys Wheeler

Missions to Persia and Afghanistan.

About the same time Lord Minto sent John Malcolm on a second mission to Persia, and Mountstuart Elphinstone on a mission to Cabul to provide against French invasion. Neither mission was followed by any practical result, but they opened up new countries to European ideas, and led to the publication of works on Persia and Afghanistan by the respective envoys, which have retained their interest to this day.

Capture of Mauritius and Java.

Meanwhile the war against France and Napoleon had extended to eastern waters. The island of the Mauritius had become a French depôt for frigates and privateers, which swept the seas from Madagascar to Java, until the East India Company reckoned its losses by millions, and private traders were brought to the brink of ruin. Lord Minto sent one expedition, which wrested the Mauritius from the French; and he conducted another expedition in person, which wrested the island of Java from the Dutch, who at that time were the allies of France. The Mauritius has remained a British possession until this day, but Java was restored to Holland at the conclusion of the war.

Anarchy in Rajputana.

§9. During the struggle against France difficulties were arising in Western Hindustan. The princes of Rajputana had been engaged in wars and feuds amongst themselves from a remote antiquity, but for nearly a century they had been also exposed to the raids and depredations of Mahratta armies. Lord Wellesley had brought the Rajput princes into subsidiary alliance with the British government, but the treaties had been annulled by Sir George Barlow, and war and pillage were as rampant as ever. The evil had been aggravated by the rise of Afghan adventurers, who had conquered territories and founded new kingdoms in central India amidst the prevailing anarchy; whilst a low class of freebooters, known as Pindharies, plundered the villagers in the skirts of the Mahratta armies, or robbed and pillaged the surrounding territories, with a savage ferocity which rendered them a pest and terror.

The Rana, or suzerain.

The hereditary suzerain of the Rajputs was a prince known as the Rana of Oodeypore. The Rana claimed descent from Rama, the hero of ancient Oudh, and incarnation of Vishnu or the Sun, whose mythical and divine glory is celebrated in the Ramayana. Unfortunately the living Rana was a weak and helpless prince, who was the dependent of his own feudatories, whilst his territories were at the mercy of Mahrattas and Afghans. He had a daughter who was regarded as a prize and treasure, not on account of her beauty or accomplishments, for she was only an immature girl, but because her high birth would ennoble her bridegroom and her future sons or daughters.

War for the Rana's daughter.

From 1806 to 1810 the Rajas of Jeypore and Jodhpore were fighting for the hand of this daughter of the Rana. The girl herself had no voice in the matter. In Rajput traditions a princess is supposed to choose her own bridegroom in an assembly of Rajas, by throwing a garland round the neck of the happy lover. But in modern practice the "choice" has fallen into disuse, and a gilded cocoa-nut is sent by the father of the princess to some selected Raja as typical of an offer of her hand. The cocoa-nut for the Oodeypore princess had been sent to a Raja of Jodhpore, but he died before the marriage, and the cocoa-nut was sent to the Raja of Jeypore. Then followed a contention. The new Raja of Jodhpore claimed the princess, on the ground that the offer had been made, not to the individual, but to the throne of Jodhpore. The Raja of Jeypore, however, had accepted the cocoa-nut, and insisted on his rights. The contention became a war to the knife, and nearly every prince in Rajputana took a part in the contest. Strange to say, the Rana himself, the father of the princess, looked on as a neutral whilst Jeypore and Jodhpore were fighting for his daughter. Meanwhile his territories, known as the garden of Rajputana, were ravaged by Sindia and an Afghan adventurer named Amir Khan, until nothing was to be seen but ruined harvests and desolated villages.